Pine Creek Gristmill is a historic building located in

Wildcat Den State Park Wildcat Den State Park is a state park in Muscatine County, Iowa, United States. The park features cliffs, rock formations, and several historic structures. The 1848 Pine Creek Gristmill and Pine Mill Bridge are both on the National Registe ...

Muscatine County, Iowa Muscatine County is a county located in the U.S. state of Iowa. As of the 2020 census, the population was 43,235. The county seat is Muscatine. The southeastern border is formed by the Mississippi River. Muscatine County comprises the Muscati ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1979.

History

Benjamin Nye was one of the first permanent white settlers/residents to the area after it was opened to settlement in 1833. He and his cousin built their homes near the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

and named the settlement Montpelier as they were originally from

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

. He built his first mill in 1835, but it was washed out because it was built too close to the Mississippi river. Nye built a water powered saw mill further upstream to the North on Pine Creek. Two years later he added a

gristmill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the Mill (grinding), grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist i ...

across the creek. He also built the county's first store and post office. As his business expanded the present mill was built by Nye in 1848 for $10,000 (then dollars) with timber he cut in his own mill. Benjamin Nye was murdered by one of his two sons-in-law (George McCoy) in 1852 and the mill passed to his other son-in-law Robert Patterson. Herman Huchendorf, a German immigrant to Muscatine County, had bought the mill by the time the Pine Mill Bridge was erected in 1876. The creek was easily crossed for most of the year, but when the water was high it was difficult for farmers to bring their grain to the mill. While this was one of numerous bridge and mill combinations across the state of Iowa it is the only one that remains in place today. The mill essentially appears as it has since the 1920s and is a museum of the range of milling processes that were used between 1848 and 1929. Originally the mill had two sets of

millstones Millstones or mill stones are stones used in gristmills, for grinding wheat or other grains. They are sometimes referred to as grindstones or grinding stones. Millstones come in pairs: a convex stationary base known as the ''bedstone'' and ...

that produced flour from wheat that was grown locally. It used a process known in the trade as the “New Process.” The mill was reequipped in 1880 when its technology became obsolete.

Architecture

The main part of the building is three and a half stories that measures by . It is attached to a two-story addition that measures by . The building was built of native oak beams. It utilizes

mortise and tenon A mortise and tenon (occasionally mortice and tenon) joint connects two pieces of wood or other material. Woodworkers around the world have used it for thousands of years to join pieces of wood, mainly when the adjoining pieces connect at right ...

joints that are connected with wooden pegs. The mill itself was powered by a 20-horsepower water turbine from approximately 1848 to 1878, and after 1878, a 40 to 60-horsepower steam engine back-up when the water level was low. The mill has three separate plants in it. The main plant is a “three stand” double roller mill that produced wheat flour and is located on all three floors. A single stand triple roller milling plant was added to mill corn. It includes a set of grindstones to produce

Buckwheat Buckwheat (''Fagopyrum esculentum''), or common buckwheat, is a flowering plant in the knotweed family Polygonaceae cultivated for its grain-like seeds and as a cover crop. The name "buckwheat" is used for several other species, such as '' Fago ...

flour.

References

External links

Wildcat Den State Park
Documentary produced by

Iowa Public Television Iowa PBS, formerly Iowa Public Television (IPTV), is a network of Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) member stations in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is owned by the Iowa Public Broadcasting Board, an agency of the state education department which h ...

{{NRHP in Muscatine County, Iowa Industrial buildings completed in 1848 National Register of Historic Places in Muscatine County, Iowa Museums in Muscatine County, Iowa Grinding mills on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa Flour mills in the United States Mill museums in Iowa Grinding mills in Iowa 1848 establishments in Iowa